


The Common Thread

by Oakentide



Series: SAO Pride Week [5]
Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21628288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oakentide/pseuds/Oakentide
Summary: Written for SAO Prideweek 2019's Day 5 Prompt. Past, Present & Future.Eiji and Kirito are still unable to resolve their problems, so Eiji enlists the help of someone from Kirito's past. Spoilers for the entire Alicization arc - Anime-only viewers beware, especially from here on out.
Relationships: Eugeo & Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito, Eugeo/Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito, Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito/Nochizawa Eiji | Nautilus | Eiji
Series: SAO Pride Week [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327283
Kudos: 10





	The Common Thread

Eiji was nursing an iced chocolate drink when she entered the cafe.

Eiji smiled uneasily, wanting to try and cut through the tension a little. The two of them have been on civil terms for a long time, but he still wasn’t sure whether Asuna was the picture of grace and forgiveness, or if she still held a grudge for his actions around Ordinal Scale.

He still needed to apologise to the Fuurinkazan, too.

The conversation flowed freely, and he was glad it didn’t centre at all around Kirito, the two of them both surprised by how much idle talk they could make. Eiji had asked to meet with her for advice, and she had obliged. Even so, when he asked her why she and Kirito had broken up, especially after such a long time, the lurching shift as the topic changed was felt by both of them.

She seemed relieved that he was the one to do it, but she still danced around the subject.

“Well, every relationship is different. So what I might have found difficult may not even register to the two of you as a problem. It would be more fruitful if you told me what was worrying you, and then we can see if my perspective is of any help.”

Eiji was only concerned with one thing. Well, one then the next. But this was first.

“His personality _had_ to have been different after his treatment, right? Was the Soul Translator a tipping point? You didn’t continue for long after that.”

She looked surprised, at first, though that may have been because the STL and its format were still not common knowledge, even among Japanese Ground Self-Defence Force personnel with security clearance. Eiji did have his connections, which he hoped that he would need later. This was what Eiji understood from what Kirito had told him, as terse as he was with the details.

Kirito’s heart had stopped for several minutes due to a poison inflicted by Johnny Black, of the Laughing Coffin Player Killer guild. This had led to significant brain damage. Ultimately, his personality, mental faculties, and even his soul were restored through the memories of others who knew him from in a virtual reality populated entirely by artificial intelligences.

“I agree, it did seem to change, and I had wondered how much of that was to do with his mind being restored. For a while I was sure I needed to _account_ for that, but what changed this was remembering something that I’d been told by a friend that he and I knew from another virtual game.”

Eiji leaned in. This was completely new to him.

“She was a hospice patient, who from birth could only traverse the virtual world because she was severely immunocompromised. She was the one who warned me that he, too, seemed to have a mind that only lived in virtual reality. Once it was pointed out, I couldn’t help noticing it.”

Eiji knew what she meant. He was a SAO Survivor, too, but as far as how it affected his boyfriend, the impact was on another level.

“It was always there. Perhaps the reconstruction from that other world even made him _more_ human, in a manner of speaking. But the problem I had with him just wasn’t exposed until well after that incident had resolved.”

So this wouldn’t be a failure. But Eiji could not be content with that; he needed to ensure success.

“I really do think the exact reason would help. He said, more or less, that you’d broken it off because of video games. Playing, programming, losing himself in them either way, and the time and attention lost to them. I know there’s a little more to it than that, and that’s the wall that I’m hitting with him right now, even as he’s sworn off playing them and abstained from any projects that actually excite him.”

Eiji cleared his throat, then quickly amended that last statement.

“Of _his_ volition, obviously. But I’m interested in what you thought was the problem deeper than that. And maybe with that sorted, he can stop torturing himself.”

Slow as Eiji was, he still finished his drink in the time that Asuna took to formulate her answer.

“I might have even _been_ as blunt and simple back then as just saying it was video games. But the truth was, if it wasn’t video games, and I believe you when you say that he finally _did_ stop, if it wasn’t video games, it was something else. His heart, his mind, and maybe even his soul, given what we’ve learned about the fluctlight, were always preoccupied. Usually with something abstracted.

It was unhealthy for me to try and take it all for myself, but I still did for quite a long time. The real “tipping point”, to put it this way, was my decision that I deserved a partner who loved me with their _whole_ heart.”

As she really saw him, Kirito was an intractable romantic partner, which Eiji now realised was why she had been so hesitant to state her true feelings.

Asuna bowed her head, as if to apologise, but Eiji only stood up, a broad smile on his face.

“I think I know what I have to do. And it should have a better chance than I expected this morning. Thanks so much, Asuna.”

Before she could reply, he stood to leave, hovering his keycard over the menu tablet to cover his tab.

“I’ll let you know how it goes.”

~

This place was intimately familiar to Eiji, and so what was new stood out. Kirito had mentioned that the sense of smell, experimental in the Amusphere days, was a standard feature of the Soul Translator dive.

Smells that he didn't even know Aincrad could have wafted into his nose. They were quickly becoming indistinguishable from the memories he'd held fast to for more than a decade. How exactly the old data and Eiji’s real world memories created this extrapolation was the kind of technical mystery best left to Kirito, who right now was practising sword attacks on straw dummies.

Eiji wasn’t sure how to feel about hoping that he might remember anything like this, and maybe obtain some new information, about Yuuna, his childhood friend, given who first tried to implement scent data in VR and why. Today wasn’t about his own memories, and he was quite happy to leave this dilemma at that.

Where they were was the Training Grounds. Eiji thought this would be an ideal place for the two to reorient themselves, so it was where he had confidently led Kirito as soon as they reached the central plaza. Here, Eiji had painstakingly, inexorably levelled his first sword skills – the only safe place to do so for an under-levelled player.

Sword skills – the system-assisted special attacks used in this game – are activated by a skill’s distinctive preparation stance. From that point, the system guides your body through an attack, then if there are more strikes, through the motion leading to the next parts of the combination. Your speed in a sword skill approached the ideal, theoretical limit of unguided movement, and the power of these strikes profoundly dwarfed that of regular attacks. In fact, regular attacks only saw use in Player Versus Player contexts, as a means of feinting your opponent’s guard in preparation for the sword skill, which would actually do damage.

An hour after they’d first arrived, it was still only Eiji who could perform them, and they still hadn’t worked out why. They had both stopped playing VRMMO games years before he and Eiji had reconnected, which factored into Eiji taking them here to practice. Eiji did expect that he would have an easier time of this. Supplementing his gymnastic training with VR-specific full-dive sessions carried over better than expected, and he hadn’t experienced panic attacks or full-dive nonconformity in months on account of his therapy.

The stark image of Kirito flailing a rusty sword at his dummy in frustration, as none of his stances were being processed by the system, was only accentuated by Kirito lacking the Midnight Coat. He instead wore his original outfit.

Returning to his own practice, Eiji was experimenting with the positions his body was locked into at different stages of combination sword skills. In these positions, he could forcefully will a decisive motion of his whole body, the kind which would have jump-started his body to move again during a bout of full-dive non-conformity. He could feel his body become a little sore every time he did this, a hurting, jarring discrepancy between where he imagined he was and where the game _accepted_ that he was.

This reduced the time his body was stationary between sword strikes – or it would, once he’d fully mastered the next part. So long as his body perfectly matched a position that the system accepted as part of the combination, the sword skill could continue at a farther point than by waiting out the time between motions. Satisfied with his progress so far, Eiji approached Kirito, who had been studying him for some time.

As they were brainstorming and trying out new ideas, Kirito thought out loud that he might need to equip the sword in his inventory rather than just hold it. Once he brought the relevant window open, he stared at it for a few minutes, and then produced a longsword. It was pure white in colour, and had a rose and petals carved into the hilt.

Kirito looked **a** t the sword in his hands quizzically; he almost as surprised as Eiji was that he had it.

Eiji squinted at the weapon. “I only transferred our account and avatar information. Inventory would have taken another week.”

“Yeah, it says here that it’s... ‘locally stored’. But it also means we don’t need to waste any more time.”

With that, Kirito sliced at his training dummy, depleting its hit points abruptly and exploding straw everywhere. There was no sword skill flash, and without another word he set off to the first Floor Labyrinth on their journey.

After one last look at the abandoned training grounds, fighting off pangs of nostalgia that he’d only just started to notice, Eiji was ready to follow Kirito.

There didn’t appear to be any NPC data of any kind, and definitely no shopkeepers, so without teleport crystals they resorted to walking. Kirito still had the critical paths of every labyrinth memorised, apparently. This astonished Eiji more than the surreal feeling of the two players killing every monster and boss before them as easily as they did. After picking up his first weapon drop, Eiji consistently stayed far ahead of the power curve.

Beginning with Ilfang the Kobold Lord, just as it had the first time he was in this place, Kirito made the final strike – but also the first. With the Midnight Coat, Eiji’s boyfriend looked more like himself, and the two settled into a comfortable pattern as they cleared floor after floor. Kirito had a devastating basic sword attack, by virtue of his equipment, that could one-hit any field or floor bosses. Eiji could efficiently clear large groups of lesser mobs by chaining and cancelling sword skills.

Several days had passed before they’d reached the 27th Floor, which held their ultimate destination. It wasn’t long before they had plunged into pitch black darkness, their path lit only by the thick, warm glow of the precious jewels embedded in the walls. Kirito still navigated, and the two of them still dispatched enemies with ease, but Eiji insisted that they rest in the nearest safe zone to the area that Kirito nominated when Eiji told Kirito his plan.

Eiji wasn’t sure how long he’d slept for, but he felt invigorated, and noticed quite guilty that Kirito looked even worse than before. They trudged through the last leg of their expedition.

After activating a secret door, Kirito entered, and Eiji followed. This secret room was a dim, long hall, with a chest down the far end. After making sure the deactivation switch was in the same place that he’d remembered, Kirito paced to a point near the chest, then looked around experimentally. From different places, he looked in an identical set of directions from himself, pensive study written all over his face. After a few minutes, he settled on an area, and waited.

Eiji asked, tentatively, “Do you want me to open the-“

“No. Please stay out of the room... actually, please only watch this if you’re really sure you want to see it. You won’t need to monitor me.”

As he paced out of the room to watch from the outside of the door, it dawned on Eiji how unfazed he was by that request, despite how much his ego was tied to his performance when he was in Aincrad the first time. Eiji’s skills outside the game had definitely made up for his inferior equipment and personal statistics so far in this current adventure, allowing him to pull his own weight. That said, from discussing this incident with Kirito he knew that this room would be much higher than its surroundings in level. Eiji might even prove a liability, or at the very least a distraction from their objective, which he now reflected on.

It was the one last thing that Eiji wanted to try before giving up on his boyfriend.

Eiji and Kirito were both survivors of Sword Art Online, and because of this, their consciousnesses would always somewhat run along the patterns suited to virtual reality and full-dive. In fact, Eiji had needed to practice mindfulness meditation in full-dive for months before it was of any use to him in real life, expensive psychiatric treatment notwithstanding. Scientists would be teasing out the details of how deeply the SAO incident had scarred and shaped its victims for decades to come, especially because replicating any one step of it would be grossly unethical. Eiji didn’t have time to wait, and thought he’d learned enough from his own treatment.

Eiji thought that there might have been something missing from Kirito, from even before the attack in real life by Laughing Coffin. He had been emotionally distant from everyone he knew for as long as Eiji had known him, and from what he could gather, it had started with his decision to become a solo player. What if part of Kirito’s heart remained in this room, where Kirito had watched, helpless, as his close friends were slaughtered, dormant here, so Kirito could protect himself? Eiji intended to bring that last piece back, with the enhanced full-dive of the Soul Translator. Once every skerrick of residual Cardinal data from this incident found its way into Kirito’s soul, he might become whole again in a way he hadn’t for a very long time.

Of course, there was no telling where Kirito would be led by his _whole_ heart.

He, Asuna, and a woman named Sachi, who was one of those who died here, were each extremely precious to Kirito. Eiji suspected too that there was also a fourth party. There had to be at least one, from that other world. Someone who had known him for an entire childhood.

Eiji had mourned their relationship long before hitting upon this plan several months ago, in the cafe with Asuna, and figured his odds were four to one. A sporting chance. Kirito was excited, too. Based on how clinically he’d been speed-running this place, he too must have been more excited to see what will happen than to have a chance to game again.

Kirito attempted to open the chest, already ready to spring back to the place he’d settled on earlier when the lighting of the room flickered out and warning sirens sounded, bathing the room in a dull neon red light that barely exceeded the darkness. Whole sections of the walls slid across, with slender bipedal golems emerging from the gaps, which appeared to have sharpened blades for hands. Not far behind them were stout, bearded dwarves, who compulsively swung the pickaxes they held into the air in front of them. Kirito had briefed Eiji on their attack patterns, but there wasn’t much to tell. Both creature types would infinitely spawn until the switch was activated, and they would both seek out the nearest player to destroy.

Kirito screamed out, levelling attacks with intensity that Eiji had not seen for the last few days spent in this game. The pale sword which had worked so well up until this point made almost no effective damage. It wasn’t until after ten good hits that he felled one dwarf. In that time, another dozen each of both types of creatures had emerged from the walls and started moving in formation towards him.

Soon, the monsters were striking him at will, and rotating their frontline, barely scratched mobs disappearing amongst the ocean of identical monsters. The few strikes Kirito that was still successfully making were thus completely mitigated. He would make no progress. This secret room, with enemies far stronger than the areas surrounding it, was far beyond the limit of what Kirito could easily clear without sword skills, despite his equipment and personal statistics.

All he could do was try to stay in the spot that he’d identified, his attention still rapidly changing between the four places he’d used as a reference, though this was now becoming more difficult as time went on.

Eiji needed to act, but he immediately felt his throat clamp up, and his limbs now ceased to act according to his thoughts. He’d forgotten this dread creeping through him, but the panic that accompanied full-dive non-conformity was familiar again. He struggled through an expedited set of mindfulness exercises. His mental focus moved from his feet, through to his ankles, upwards throughout his whole body then ended between his nostrils as he felt his breath, where his focus stayed, but he still couldn’t move. He couldn't even shy his eyes away from what was in front of him. As nothing changed, his thoughts twisted inwards, any spurring to action stymied by the perverse comfort of staring at Kirito’s very green HP bar.

Kirito’s avatar was not in any danger, and certainly his life wasn’t. Kirito was still diving through the Soul Translator, rather than the NerveGear, which would destroy its user’s mind forever should they reach zero health points. In fact, even as the enemies were so many that they were overwhelming each other just to strike Kirito, the health they depleted was replenished within seconds on account of Kirito’s Battle Healing. As unsettling as it was to see him being tossed around by vivid, shifting glimmers of bright red.

Eiji bitterly contemplated the suffering that so many would have been spared, including himself, if everyone in the game could have been so over-levelled. But given where they were, he didn’t try to pretend that those advantages had insulated Kirito from loss and pain. Eiji thought that this would be very disingenuous.

And to tell the truth, he had been especially unfair to Kirito lately. His boyfriend had been aloof and distant recently, but when he was like this for a little while, Eiji would often be surprised by Kirito being caring and thoughtful in his own, odd way. It was with such mixed emotions, Eiji feeling both isolated and closer to Kirito in ways he couldn’t imagine, that he realised why Kirito had asked him to consider whether Eiji _wanted_ to watch this. Kirito was helpless, here, and this had made Eiji relive Yuna’s death once again, the Soul Translator exposing the deepest parts of himself to the full gravity of this trauma. Eiji was barely coping, but he was also more resilient than he expected to be given the circumstances.

Eiji watched. Still, nothing changed. If half of the enemies weren’t the short, stocky dwarves, Eiji wouldn’t be able to pick out his boyfriend among the ocean of creatures. He wished he could see the journey taking place inside of Kirito, but he could only watch as Kirito desperately tried to resist being jostled from his spot by the force of countless impacts.

More time passed.

A glow.

Kirito was pointing his sword upwards, with both hands gripping the hilt at arm’s length. Eiji couldn’t tell whether Kirito was offering the sword or admiring it, but its blade shone with a bright light that filled the room.

Eiji suspected some glamour effect had also changed Kirito’s outfit into a simple tunic, the colours quite similar to those Kirito had on when they first arrived here, but with lighter blue highlighting the collar and belt.

The attacks of the monsters no longer moved Kirito around, which filled Eiji with relief first and curiosity second. It was a few seconds until Kirito moved again at all.

Kirito began a slashing attack, swinging his sword down and to the left, before abruptly halting it, switching his grip and cutting horizontally, to his right. Eiji noticed the brief instance of light splashing onto the enemies, but could barely make out the movements that Kirito performed, only clearly seeing the sword. Thrusting forwards. Twisting. Pulling down. Two different vertical cuts along the same semicircle. Eiji saw no evidence of damage being done to any monsters; those parts of the combination were also being skipped as Kirito built up momentum. Soon there was almost no time between flashes.

This continued for two dozen attacks in total, after which Kirito hefted the sword’s blade over his right shoulder, stepping out with his left foot to prime the backswing of what must be a horizontal 360° cut, the room illuminated once more by the glow of a sword skill, and Eiji with time to give this a proper look.

In this position Kirito should have looked vulnerable, but Eiji thought his boyfriend was invincible, even before he noticed an invisible aura which sent sparks flying whenever an enemy touched Kirito’s unyielding skin.

A primal scream. Then his sword finally completed a motion.

As Kirito swung through the arc cut, Eiji noticed Kirito suddenly took on much more momentum than he should have. Kirito hadn’t leveraged his stance or brought any power from his torso, but when the sweep was complete a blast of thick, icy air occluded any further analysis. Its first brunt brought a chill through to Eiji’s bones – even from this far away. Was he imagining, or did he see, a contented smile in that last moment? What he knew for sure was that his boyfriend’s outfit flickered an inversion of its prior colour scheme.

In the next dozen or so seconds, Eiji’s heart was racing as his mind furiously processed every detail he could.

As such, Eiji found himself inundated with information when the obscuring cold began to recede, especially when it finally dispersed where it began and was thickest: the epicentre of Kirito’s attack. Every enemy was gone. Even the traces of errant pixels that should still be around where enemies have disintegrated were missing.

In their place was a tall, imposing wall made of ice, which spread out roughly equally in both directions and blocked all of the entry points for the mobs. It was deeply carved with intricate patterns reminiscent of those around the dungeon labyrinth walls, which Eiji knew well from his days in Aincrad, but in three dimensions. It looked as though it had been carved by hand over a few years, with fine details Eiji couldn’t make out from this distance, despite it appearing in the wake of a blast of energy that existed for a fraction of a second.

At sporadic points, great masses of ice seemed to explode outward, thick beams in all directions. They couldn’t have been attached, but were supported from where they connected to the back of the wall, suggesting the ice was dense and the original wall was several feet thick. There wasn’t evidence of any cracks, even as these overflows of ice began to drip where they met the wall, the temperate air that revealed them now melting them and undermining their structural integrity.

Eiji thought they might have been crude, heavily simplified flowers.

Kirito had yet to either move or stay his gaze from something between himself and the chest where most of the enemies were. Eiji noticed the stiff and brittle way that Kirito struggled to keep his composure. The back of his shoulders were almost twisting as he stood to attention, looking like an exhausted soldier standing guard at a cenotaph. As the last of the mist cleared, Eiji also saw what had left his partner so reverently transfixed.

A sculpture, made entirely of ice, was set into a few inches of solid foundation. It was surrounded by perfectly formed cylindrical columns, which stood out against the irregularity of the explosions spread out around the wall. This centrepiece looked meticulous and economical in its use of the material, with not even an iota missing or out of place, whereas that wall looked almost like the destination where any excess ice had pooled.

Eiji moved closer, also walking a circle around the outside of the room, to get a better look, but first noticed that Kirito’s face was in fact marred with tears frozen fast against his cheeks. It wouldn’t be until they left this place that those would finally melt.

He made out what looked like benches hung on chains against another solid wall, and more chains lying around two figures in the very centre of the room, and with this context deduced the columns were prison bars, seeing also that each figure had a snapped chain shackled to one wrist.

They were embracing. In Eiji’s best application to date of his nascent mastery of body language, he was sure he could feel the static frisson and terror between two first kisses. Kirito was first to speak.

“Eiji... I’m sorry. It’s-“

“I know.”

Eiji draped his arm around Kirito’s shoulder, comfort and company both for his very long journey back to the Town of Beginnings.

**Author's Note:**

> Finally over the hump. The rest of the story at least has far less moving parts and is mostly done. 
> 
> Might even get this out before 2020.


End file.
